The player is going to play the vast majority of his minutes at the position you have him starting at. So while it's not quite as effective if he's playing minutes elsewhere, it's still worthwhile.

Also, I generally would avoid the type of depth chart thing you mention -- I would only very, very rarely put my starter at one position as a backup elsewhere. I don't think the sim does a good job of working that in, and unless you have a very different/specific sort of situation on your team (and maybe you do), I don't think setting it up that way is helpful.

Talent is the most important part of the game, just as it is in real life. You can't compensate for lack of talent as much in HD as you can in real life -- a real life coaches simply has many, many more levers to pull. But there is no question that smart gameplanning and strategy help. It won't turn a subpar team into a good one. But it can turn a subpar one into an OK one, and a good one into a great one. (Especially at D2/D3, where a lot of people simply don't know what they're doing.)

I agree with girt. The post that you referenced has good starting advice, but you don't need to follow everything to a "t". Recruiting is important in this game, but there are other important aspects of this game, including game planning (setting your depth chart, player distribution, team settings, etc), setting your practice plan and team planning (good balance of upper classman and lower classman, Good variety of scorers, defenders, distributors, role players, etc). Finding the right type of players for your offensive and defensive system is key.

Sure, when a very athletic, high defense team is playing a team without much talent, 99 times out of a 100 they will blow them out of the water. However when you have two closely matched teams in the national tournament, a couple of tweaks to your game plan could be the difference between a first round exit and a run to the final four.

craig -90% or more of the top coaches will tell you to gameplan. My alias, Oldresorter, is one of the more famous coaches known for set and forget. That is not exactly accurate of what I do, I actually teamplan very hard, in order to get my distro, shot selection, depth chart and fatigue settings 'right' for any particular team I coach.

What I feel is dangerous, is the notion, that large changes to the game plan, like moving a guy taking 3% of your team shots to a large distro number, or moving the starting SF to PG in order to get the right defensive matchup, can be very dangerous for the newer coach (and even some vet coaches).

If 90% of the coaches would tell you to gameplan, here is something I'm 90% sure of, there is a set of 'right' ways to go about running an HD team, that maybe 10% of the coaches who play the game know, such that those coaches tend to win more than the others, that extends beyond 'high' rated players (I say high rated players, because I think there is also 'right' rated players, which is an edge the best coaches have over most too).

I don't know who this d2 guru is, but my guess is he does many of the right things when he 'teamplans' for the set and forget season, that he has in common with girt, or lostmyth or aejones or billyg or etc, etc, etc. I often see those 5 give advice that is different than each other, or different than I might give, yet, at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure much of what they do is consistent from coach to coach.

So don't get real caught up on if -3 or -2 or -1 or +1 might be ideal, or fast or normal or slow for any given day to the exclusion of what might be best for your team, game in and game out, in terms of team and ind settings. Only once you get the set and forget stuff right to set a baseline, can you really adjust game to game well, especially as a newer coach. I still look at things trying to get my baseline setup right for each team as the most important part of pllaying this sim, and I have coached as many or more games than anyone, some might even say at a pretty high level.

yes Dac. Aejones was the thread I'm referencing. And there is a lot of great advice in there. I'm using a bunch of it. But overall, a lot of the advice on how he dominates recruiting, sets his team and then leaves.... That is not a possibility for me. Maybe I could think about that 10 seasons from now when my prestige is at A+. That just doesn't help at all.

Posted by girt25 on 4/2/2013 7:04:00 AM (view original):The player is going to play the vast majority of his minutes at the position you have him starting at. So while it's not quite as effective if he's playing minutes elsewhere, it's still worthwhile.

Also, I generally would avoid the type of depth chart thing you mention -- I would only very, very rarely put my starter at one position as a backup elsewhere. I don't think the sim does a good job of working that in, and unless you have a very different/specific sort of situation on your team (and maybe you do), I don't think setting it up that way is helpful.

Talent is the most important part of the game, just as it is in real life. You can't compensate for lack of talent as much in HD as you can in real life -- a real life coaches simply has many, many more levers to pull. But there is no question that smart gameplanning and strategy help. It won't turn a subpar team into a good one. But it can turn a subpar one into an OK one, and a good one into a great one. (Especially at D2/D3, where a lot of people simply don't know what they're doing.)

Posted by craigaltonw on 4/2/2013 5:20:00 AM (view original):I just don't find his advice terribly helpful. If I were coaching at an A+ prestige program, maybe.

I guess what I want to know is if spending time tinkering with game plans to compensate for lack of talent is something I should spend time doing or not. The Hero coach says no. If I follow his advice, I don't look at my team again until the end of the season and wait until I can recruit better for next season or jump ship to a better program.

I kind of agree with this advice but not quite (about not gameplanning much). I do not game plan much during the regular season (why give away your post season strategies) however there are three things I do quite often during the regular season.

1) Every 6-7 days, I will readjust the practice minutes. Sometimes there isnt much to re-adjust but sometimes there is.
2) Every 3-5 days, I will readjust playing time, 3 pt shooting, and all of the things in "Player Game Plan"
3) Every 5-7 days, I will re-evaluate the "Depth Chart" to see if the proper players are playing the way I want to.

I check those more often at the very beginning and at the very end of the season. Also, I do think that once you have A+ prestige, it is important to get the very best that you can during recruiting, I think that getting the best horses is THE most important thing in this game.

I very seldom will move a player out of position to play against another player. (I have done that before when I have a killer defensive guy in post season). But usually I will just leave them as they are. If an opponent has a super player who takes more than say 25% of the teams shots, then I might double team him, depending on his percentages. If he is a 40.0% (35% three pt shot) type of player, then I will just let him shoot away. My pct's should be higher than that.

Edit: Also, many times, I use the offensive positioning (+2 or -2 ) to cover for defensive weaknesses. If my guards Def isnt as good as I like, then I use a +1 or +2 as the base setting. And vice versa. Although I would rather have good D's at all positions, that isnt always the case. Especially at D3.